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/ Email Encoder – Protect Email Addresses and Phone Numbers

Email Encoder – Protect Email Addresses and Phone Numbers

By Online Optimisation

Security & Privacy / Security Scanning & Malware Protection

Reviewed by Omar Dabbas

Trusted WordPress expert with 20+ years of experience evaluating plugins for the WP ecosystem.

Email Encoder – Protect Email Addresses and Phone Numbers Review - In-Depth Analysis

Protect email addresses and phone numbers from spambots. Easy to use and flexible with no configuration needed.

Performance Overview

WPS Score

6.74/10

User Rating

4.9/5 (based on 94+ reviews)

Active Installations

90,000+

Update Frequency

Average It is calculated using the weighted average of same category plugins.

Security Score

4.88 / 10 (Low Risk) It is calculated using the weighted average of all versions.

What It Does

This plugin provides full site protection for your email addresses against spam-bots and email harvesters. It requires no configuration and protects phone numbers and other text using integrated shortcodes or href attribute encoding.

Features include full page protection for all emails, instant results, and support for various link types including mailto links, plain emails, and RSS feeds. It automatically detects the best protection technique for each email and allows for exclusion of specific posts and pages from protection.

The plugin supports multiple encoding methods and provides shortcodes for easy integration. It is compatible with most themes and plugins, ensuring seamless functionality.

Comparing to Alternatives

Email Encoder – Protect Email Addresses and Phone Numbers is a well-regarded plugin in its category with several alternatives available that offer similar email protection features.

Top alternatives

Strengths

Highly rated with a 4.9 out of 5 stars from 93 reviews
Works seamlessly with popular page builders like DIVI
Offers more design options than many paid plugins
Instant activation and protection of email addresses and phone numbers
Includes a built-in tool for manual code generation

Weaknesses

No paid version available for advanced features
Some users desire more control such as disabling encryption by CSS classes or IDs
Does not yet automatically recognize phone numbers
Has a history of multiple security vulnerabilities, though fixed in recent updates

User Sentiment Analysis

The plugin enjoys overwhelmingly positive feedback with 94.6% of ratings at 5 stars and very few low ratings, reflecting strong user satisfaction.

Positive highlights

"Perfect plugin! It works seamlessly with DIVI’s page builders." — boerni
"Great plugin! It does its job perfectly and offers more design options than paid plugins." — pixel007
"Excellent plugin and support. Highly recommended." — niveksa
"Works perfectly, automatic mode is very useful." — Ishko
"Thanks for the quick fix and your friendly and attentive support!" — sankari

Common complaints

Weaknesses

History of multiple stored cross-site scripting vulnerabilities
No pro version limits advanced feature availability
Some users want more granular control over encryption settings
Lacks automatic phone number recognition

Who Should Use This?

Best for

Users seeking a reliable, free plugin to protect email addresses and phone numbers from spam bots, especially those using page builders like DIVI who want easy setup and good design options.

Not ideal for

Users requiring advanced customization features or automatic phone number detection, or those concerned about past security vulnerabilities despite recent fixes.

Pricing & Value

Free version includes

The free version offers comprehensive email and phone number protection with manual code generation and multiple design options, sufficient for most users.

Final Verdict

Email Encoder – Protect Email Addresses and Phone Numbers is a highly rated and effective plugin that offers excellent protection for email addresses and phone numbers, with seamless integration and useful design options. Its free availability and positive user feedback make it a strong choice for many WordPress users.

However, the plugin has a history of security vulnerabilities that have been addressed in recent updates, and it lacks a pro version for advanced features. Users needing more customization or automatic phone number recognition might consider alternatives. Overall, it remains a valuable tool for protecting contact information on WordPress sites.

Other Notable Features

Here are a few other notable features of this free Email Encoder – Protect Email Addresses and Phone Numbers plugin.

Email protection

Spam prevention

Phone number protection

Screenshots

FAQ

You can test this in three different ways.

The easiest (and most efficient) way is to use our website checker, which looks over your website and detects unprotected emails. It is completely free and you can find it here on our website.

The second possibility is to enable the plugin option (in the admin panel) called “Security Check”.
When you are logged in and look on the page there will be a icon on the right side of each email address confirming it was successfully encoded. (This counts only for emails that are displayed within the body tag as HTML. Emails within data attributes or the header won’t show this icon since otherwise the site breaks.)

The third possibility is to check the source code yourself by right-clicking on the page and select View Source Code (the exact text depends on the browser).
Now your (real) source code will be shown. Your email address should not be shown in a readable way in the source.

Important: in the element inspector of the browser the email address is nearly always shown, so don’t worry about that. That is because the inspector shows a real time representation of the page. This means an encoded email address is already decoded and made usable for the visitor of the page.